


Children Born on Christmas

by eva_roisin



Series: Widows and Orphans [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Catharsis, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester Use Their Words, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Kline as God, M/M, Men Crying, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Comforts Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Knows, Team Free Will (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eva_roisin/pseuds/eva_roisin
Summary: After Castiel's death, Sam struggles to help his devastated brother work through his grief.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Widows and Orphans [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025251
Comments: 18
Kudos: 175





	Children Born on Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> NB: This is not a Castiel resurrection story (though it does leave on the table the possibility that Cas will come back). I sincerely hope the creators bring him back in the last episode, but I was so sad after he died that I went through a bit of a process myself, and decided to write this fic to work through it.

1.

It seems like a good idea, at first.

They have so many files. Rooms of boxes stacked to the ceiling. Filing cabinets in every room, including the bathroom. And that’s just from the Men of Letters. There’s also the vast archive they themselves have generated throughout the years—the notepads and clippings and crude drawings that make John Winchester’s journal look laconic in comparison. Sam’s been putting things in spreadsheets for years, saving them to an encrypted folder on his laptop, but there’s still no system of organization, so whenever they need information, they have to know already where it’s stored.

So on the surface, Eileen’s suggestion that they digitize the whole collection seems like a good one. It’s an idea they couldn’t consider previously—a consolidated database, though convenient, would have been a prime target for some ambitious infernal (or celestial) hacker. But now that things are calm and the world’s been set right? Well. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it _is_ time to bring HQ into the twenty-first century.

“You could do data mining,” Eileen is saying. “You could make connections between things no one’s ever thought about before.”

They’re sitting outside at a beer garden. Dean is with them. Which, in all honesty, isn’t good: the only thing Dean hates more than being a third wheel is a _beer garden_. The fact that he took them up on the invitation, coming along without much prodding, says it all.

Dean’s grief is always inversely proportionate to what he’s showing you. The worse he’s feeling, the more impassive he becomes. And right now he’s goddamn unreadable—sitting next to them in an outdoor lounge chair, staring straight ahead, a hand wrapped around a beer.

“Maybe,” Sam says, his mind on Dean—not on the possibility of having to break the spine of every book in that library in order to scan the pages.

“And you wouldn’t have to worry about losing or forgetting anything.”

Sam wouldn’t mind forgetting some things. “I don’t think we have the budget for that kind of thing. I mean, hiring some tech outfit to data-mine ancient Akkadian texts can’t be cheap.”

“There’s got to be software,” she says. “You could probably figure it out on your own.”

He appreciates her confidence in his abilities—a stint at Stanford undergrad does not a “big data expert” make—and he should thank her. Honestly. But instead, he decides to take another off-ramp. “Dean,” he says, sitting up in his chair to glance over at his brother. “You finally got it—your reason to learn how to code.”

Dean says nothing. He doesn’t move or blink or attempt a smile. He just takes another swig of his beer, and Sam hates himself for having just done that, for alluding so irreverently to the life they’d led in the past year, the life they shared with Jack and Cas. For talking about things so casually, as though Jack and Cas had just slipped outside for a cigarette and could come back inside at any moment to order another beer, and tell another joke. 

_Learn to code_. That was their inside joke for the past year. A stupid, self-deprecating one-liner they’d been lobbing at each other and themselves, starting when Jack asked Dean what he’d do if all the monsters were dead tomorrow and he had nothing left to chase. “I’d do what they tell ex-coal miners and journalists to do,” he said. “Learn how to code. No, scratch that. I’d send _you_ off to coding bootcamp. In fact, I think I’ll do that anyway, monsters or no.”

It was a dumb joke, but it took off from there. If one of them botched an assignment? Time to learn how to code. Came up empty on a stake-out? Coding: still an option. Pissed off Dean? Well, at least coding still loves you.

“I already know how,” Cas disclosed one night after accidentally knocking an empty whiskey glass onto the floor. It shattered. Cas usually wasn’t clumsy, but he’d been drinking.

It was one of those evenings when the four of them were just hanging out together—but as usual, Sam and Jack were extraneous. Or, at least, that’s how Sam felt at the time. When Cas and Dean were together, they were the main attraction. Sam and Jack were just their sideshow pals. 

Dean watched Cas scramble for the pieces of the glass. “You’re losing your mojo again,” he said. He turned back to shuffling a deck of cards. “We’ll have to cut you off. Maybe it’s time to think about Python.”

“I’m telling you, I already know it,” Cas said as he gathered up the pieces. “Angels know all human languages, ancient and modern. That includes programming languages. Even those that don’t yet exist.”

“Come again?” Dean said.

“And some animal languages, too.” He paused, looking up at Dean. “Though, to be fair, most animals share a language, a kind of lingua franca. Dogs, however, have their own grammar. It’s quite exquisite.”

“So, this whole time, when we’ve been joking about learning how to code … you already knew how?”

Cas straightened. Shrugged. “The joke is somewhat limited in scope. I never thought it would last this long.”

“Touché,” Dean said. He pointed to the stack of cards. “Okay, pal. Cut this deck.”

Now Dean says nothing. He doesn’t look at either of them. And then, in a voice so plain and unaware that it injures Sam to hear it, Dean says, “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

2.

It’s been three weeks.

Initially, they felt positive about his chances of returning. Cas has gone away before; every time he comes back, each resurrection a little less plausible. He’s survived fire and all manner of total obliteration. He’s survived purgatory. He survived the goddamn _Empty_. And Dean, always the pessimist, points this out.

That’s why Sam knows this time is different. This time is bad. _He’s_ usually the hopeful one. Not Dean.

“Dean. What exactly _happened_?” Sam asked one night a couple weeks ago, as they drove home after a grocery run. “With Cas and the Empty?”

Dean flinched—almost imperceptibly. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and then relaxed. “I told you. We were trapped. Billie was outside the door, and she was getting in come hell or high water. So … Cas summoned the Empty. So that it would take them both.”

“But how?” Sam said, glancing at his brother, careful not to look too long. “How do you summon something like the Empty? The Empty can’t just pop in like that. Did he say something? I mean, what—”

“Sam, I don’t know. It was just _there_.” His voice dropped. “And then Cas and Billie weren’t.”

Even if Sam were inclined to take Dean at his word—and he’s not, especially when it comes to shit like Cas—he knows he’s lying. He knows because of the things Jack told him.

He does not, however, fault Dean for not telling him.

After they met on the street that awful morning (how the sun could still be shining while all their people were gone Sam didn’t know, but he thought it spoke volumes about Chuck’s sick sense of humor), they drove aimlessly at first, from one place to another. To the town. To the countryside. They waited for Chuck to return their call, and he took his sweet goddamn time.

Jack was folded against the backseat. He hadn’t spoken in hours.

Dean pulled up to the liquor store and parked. Usually Sam went with him, but this time he didn’t even take off his seatbelt. He told Dean he didn’t want anything.

Once Dean shut the door, Sam glanced back to see Jack. He wasn’t crying anymore, but his face was puffy and tear-streaked. “Kid,” Sam said.

“I’ve been praying to him all day, Sam. And just … nothing.”

“Give him some time,” Sam said. “He’s done this before. Just remind yourself of that. He’s been to the Empty. He’s been to hell. He’s been to purgatory. And he always comes back. When we see Chuck tonight—” 

“It just doesn’t make any sense that the Empty would take him. No sense, Sam.”

Roused by Jack’s urgent tone, Sam twisted his body so he could face him “What do you mean?”

Jack stared straight at him in that way that was unnerving—both comforting and unsettling. He didn’t blink. His eyes were wet. “Castiel made a deal with it.”

“He made a deal with … _what_?”

Jack took a deep breath. “Last year, when I died, the Empty came after me. It was tearing apart heaven to get to me—” He shook his head slightly. “He traded himself for me. Told the Empty to take him instead. And the Empty agreed, but …”

Sam waited, staring at Jack.

“There were these … conditions.”

“ _Conditions_?”

“The Empty wouldn’t take Castiel then. It said it wanted to see him suffer, so it would wait until he was happy. Until he was truly happy. And then it would take everything from Cas.”

Sam turned around in his seat. Dean was still in the liquor store. Outside it was blindingly sunny. He wanted to go somewhere to process this. He wanted to be anywhere else.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Jack continued. He sniffled. “I promised Cas. He didn’t want to worry you. And—he assured me that would probably never happen, that he was so far from being happy, let alone truly happy, that—” Jack’s voice broke. A moment of silence. Then, a whisper, a realization as instant as light cast into darkness: “Oh. Oh my God.”

Sam watched as Dean emerged from the liquor store.

On the drive back to the bunker, none of them said anything.

3.

Even though he shot down Eileen’s suggestion of digitizing the entire collection—in ways less kind or delicate as they should have been—he’s decided to organize his spreadsheets.

He hates Excel, but he’s been using it since college. First he used it to keep track of his assignment deadlines. Then he used it to keep track of law school application deadlines. Then, later, he used it to keep track of everything else. The location of every confirmed active vampire nest in the country. The location of every _un_ confirmed active vampire nest in the country. The mating habits of the Chupacabra. A longstanding record of their cases—solved, unsolved, received but not-yet-opened. The question-mark cases—things they’d read in the news but hadn’t had the time to explore.

He has so many spreadsheets.

“Oh, there you go again,” Cas said one day when he walked into the library, peering over Sam’s shoulder to see what he was doing. “There you go, filling in your little boxes.”

“It’s called a spreadsheet, Cas.”

“I know what it’s called. I’m still convinced that it’s an ugly way to do your work. Especially since—well, your father had such elegant handwriting.”

Even though Cas was fluent in all the programming languages of the universe, he remained skeptical that computer technology was a net-gain for humankind. At first Sam figured that Cas was a luddite who pined for the days of mail pigeons and pony express, who felt that technology marred The Word. Later, though, he understood that Cas loved humanity and therefore he loved evidence of its efforts, all those lovely imperfect fingerprints that computer technology erased. If Cas had an ideal manuscript, it was probably something carved into stone tablets. Second ideal: an illuminated medieval bible written on parchment made from goatskin.

“I need to keep track of things,” he told Cas. “Unlike you, I don’t just remember shit. I don’t have a celestial brain.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Cas said, sliding into the chair next to him. “Human beings have near-unlimited memory. You’re capable of knowing almost as much as angels.” He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Literacy was the worst thing you did to yourselves. When you write things down, you give yourself permission to forget them.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bad thing?”

“People in pre-literate societies had to remember so many things. Their stories knit them together. Entire peoples—vast and complex—would gather together regularly to recite their histories. Hundreds of thousands of words. You should have heard ancient Eblan. You wouldn’t believe the capacity those people had for detail.”

“Cas.” Sam leaned forward. “It’s just a spreadsheet.”

“It’s just—” Cas pursed his lips. His eyes met Sam’s. “John had such beautiful handwriting.”

4.

The days come and go. No Cas.

Sam’s hope wanes. So does Dean—literally. He drops weight in the span of a month. Maybe ten pounds. He looks terrible.

“He looks terrible,” Eileen says when she comes by the bunker one afternoon. The next day she comes back with macaroni and cheese and meatloaf and mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse. Enough fatty, starchy food to kickstart a case of diabetes. Dean is politely cheery through all of this, complimenting the hell out of Eileen’s cooking. “Mrs. Butters who?” But he still doesn’t eat much, covering most of his plate with plastic wrap and sticking it in the fridge.

Afterwards, Sam walks Eileen to her car. “I know you’re worried,” she said. “And you have reason to be. But I really think he just needs time.”

Sam wants to believe her. He rubs his jawline. “Castiel and my brother were … extraordinarily tight. Dean never had many friends. We moved around a lot growing up. And he was, you know, _Dean_.”

She smiles sadly and takes his hand. “Not exactly the most outgoing person.”

“So you noticed.” He manages a smile. “Yeah, our regular Mary Sunshine.”

She squeezes his hand and pulls him closer to her. “But how are _you_ feeling?”

When he goes back inside, Dean is at the table in the alcove, hunched over his laptop. He looks up, annoyed. “The fuck, dude.”

“What?”

“What are you doing here? I swear to God, Sam, if you let that girl walk outta here again without going with her, I’m gonna knock you into next Tuesday.”

He tries not to roll his eyes.

“I’m not joking, Sammy. You don’t blow the best thing that’s happened to you in the last ten years to hang out with your unwashed brother in a bunker that smells like old books and ramen. And I won’t let you, either.”

Now Sam does roll his eyes. Hands in his pockets, he slumps against the molding at the mouth of the alcove. “I’m here because I want to be.”

“Well, I’m telling you to go.”

“And I’m telling you I don’t care. It’s not up to you.”

“I don’t need you to babysit,” Dean said. “You don’t have to worry about me being around sharp objects. Or fucking tiptoe around me all day.”

Sam pushes himself from the wall and goes over to stand next to Dean. “Not everything is about you, Dean. He was my friend too. Did you ever think about that? You don’t have a fucking monopoly on missing Cas.” He relaxes. Puts his hands in his pockets. “Maybe it would help to have a, I don’t know. A service. A … more meaningful goodbye.”

With that, Dean’s out of his chair. He grabs Sam by the shirt and shoves him into the wall. “He’s not dead. We don’t know that yet.” Gives him one more half-hearted shove before leaving the room.

5.

It was always so obvious to Sam. Of course Cas loved Dean. Loved him steadfastly, unequivocally. And Dean loved Cas back every bit as much.

Maybe the depth of Cas’s love seemed less obvious to Dean because it became a punchline among the angels and demons. It was easy for Dean not to take it seriously. _Your boyfriend. Your lover. The angel in the hundred-dollar suit and ugly trench coat who’s madly in love with you_. _You know, that one._ What else do angels and demons do, other than lie constantly? Those fuckers.

But because he knows how Dean thinks, he knows why Dean _really_ dismissed the possibilities: he didn’t think anyone could love him as devotedly, as undistractedly, as Cas did. He didn’t think he deserved it, that he mattered so much to someone else, let alone a celestial being. The fact that Cas stuck around? It had to be some weird angel quirk. Wasn’t that how angels rolled? They dedicated themselves to one person and stuck around for the duration. Like an arranged marriage.

To Dean, the fact that Cas gave and gave was evidence of duty, not of Dean’s significance to Cas. Not of how large Dean loomed in Cas’s life. Dean couldn’t accept the fact that he was _that_ important to Cas—that Cas stuck around because Dean was Dean, and that was reason enough.

Now he wishes he’d gone to Dean before it was too late. _He loves you. Not because he’s an angel. Because you’re you._

He remembers the Fourth of July when they introduced Jack to fireworks, driving all the way to Salina and parking their car a mile from the display. They didn’t want to be stuck in a crowd. Even so, Jack still kept his ears covered the whole time.

“Does it have to be so loud?” he asked.

“Humans like loud things,” Cas explained.

“No,” Dean said. “ _Americans_ like loud things. And you, Jack, are an American.”

Jack looked up at the sky. “And this is like, America’s birthday?”

“You bet.”

“It’s the birthday of the United States,” Cas corrected. “America is two continents. The United States is just one of the countries on the North American continent.”

Dean tipped back his beer. He’d had several so far—Sam lost track. “And being American means not giving two fucks about bullshit semantics like that.”

Dean was in no shape to drive home, so Sam took the keys and Dean didn’t put up much of a fight. He also let Jack take shotgun and shoved himself into the backseat with Cas. “Damn, I’m soused,” he said. “That sure as shit doesn’t happen every day.”

“Is that sarcasm?” Cas said. “Or are you just really that unself-aware?”

“Cas,” Dean said, raising his voice—and if you didn’t know him, you’d think he was about to tear Cas a new one. But Sam knew better. “Don’t ever change, buddy.”

When they were about halfway home, Sam glanced in the rearview mirror to see Dean slumped against Cas’s shoulder, even though he was still awake. Cas’s arm was around him, loosely clutching Dean's shoulder. Occasionally he touched Dean's head, his hair. Sam didn't know for sure, but he thought Dean's hand was resting on Cas's abdomen. Maybe holding his other hand.

On the radio, “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” was playing. _Wherever I am you’ll always be, more than just a memory._

“Hey, do me a favor, Cas,” Dean said. “Play this song at my funeral.”

Cas was silent. Then: “Don’t joke about things like that.”

“I’m not joking. In case you hadn’t noticed, we humans have short little lives. We don’t exactly measure our time on earth in millennia. It’s like dog years to people years. Times a million. So. I won’t make you promise to throw yourself on the casket, though. Even though it would be entertaining.”

The next day, Sam woke up and wandered into the library. Dean was obviously still sleeping it off, but Cas was in the library sitting at the table, staring into his laptop. Sam could hear the tinny strains of “If I Ever Leave This World Alive,” but when Cas sensed he wasn’t alone, he closed the laptop quickly.

“Hello, Sam,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “How are you this morning?”

Sam has a lot of regrets, but his biggest one is not telling Cas what he needed to say the most. He wishes he had that moment back. He wishes he’d crossed the room right then, closing the space between them to lean over and put his arms around Cas. _Thank you_ , he wishes he’d said. _Thank you for loving my brother_.

6.

So it seems that Jack doesn’t want a perfect world. There’s still global warming and one-ply toilet paper; there are parking tickets and internet trolls. There’s the common cold, which Sam gets in the fall, as he always does. And it spares Dean, as it always does, even though Dean’s the one who looks like shit and hasn’t been taking care of himself. Hasn't eaten a balanced meal in months. Starts every day with a beer or three.

And there are still monsters, too. Not the really bad stuff. More like ordinary ho-hum beasties. They’re back to being pest control again. One weekend it’s an Ohio Grassman. The next weekend it’s a run-of-the-mill haunted house. Eileen comes along that time.

It seems they won’t have to learn to code after all. Jack obviously doesn’t want that for them.

Just when Sam firmly believes that he’s never going to see or hear from Jack ever again, he has a dream. In it, Jack meets him on a park bench, looking every bit as youthful and human as he did when they saw him last, and Sam is so overjoyed to see him he almost knocks him over. “I missed you so much, buddy,” he says, resisting the urge to give him a noogie.

“I’m always with you, Sam. I told you that. You just have to believe.”

He slides onto the bench next to Jack, one hand on his shoulder. “I know. It’s just … hard.”

“Yes, your dimension is difficult to navigate by faith alone. Your belief systems don’t lend themselves to recognizing an un-vesseled benevolent presence. You’re attuned more often to negative energy—a consequence of your evolutionary programming. But listen, Sam. That’s why I’m here.”

Sam knows it’s about Cas.

“This universe, and the universes beyond it, is about balance,” Jack says. “The problems that caused the upheaval of the last ten years resulted directly from a series power grabs that upset order, many of them originating with Chuck. Worse, this imbalance destroyed the sacredness of choice, with demons refusing to give people any sort of choice when possessing them, and angels forcing humans into impossible decisions that defeated the purpose of free will entirely. My job is to address that problem.”

Jack leans forward, peering into Sam’s eyes. “Demons are allowed to enter a human being only if they have that person’s consent. When that is the case, you are to give these demons safe passage in your dimension as long as they respect this ground rule and are not destructive of innocent life. If they cross a line, I will let you know.”

“But they’re demons. By nature they’re destructive.”

“They have a purpose, just as angels have a purpose. As I said, this universe thrives on balance.”

“And the monsters? And ghosts?”

“That is your territory. People still need to be crossed over, and monsters will always be monsters. They’re bound only by the chaos, so we still need you.”

There’s a long silence. Sam doesn’t want to break it.

“Castiel,” Jack says. “I know that’s why you’ve been calling for me.”

“It’s not good, is it.”

Jack sighs through his nose. “I can’t find him.”

Sam is still, trying to process this information. _What do you mean you can’t find him!_ he wants to scream. _You’re God, for fuck’s sake._

“I’m sorry, Sam. The Empty took him before I was in a position to do anything about it. And the Empty was riled.”

“Riled?”

“It was my fault. I woke Cas from the Empty once before. This threw it into chaos. What was supposed to be an eternal resting place for non-human entities became vengeful and merciless. I have since tried to restore order there. But—” His gaze intensified. “By the time I reached the Empty, I couldn’t find Castiel anywhere.”

“So he’s not there,” Sam said, his relief palpable. “Then where the hell is he?”

“Sam,” Jack said. “You’re not hearing me. Cas was destroyed. It happened before I got there.”

“Destroyed?”

“He no longer exists. Anywhere.”

“How is that possible? He’s a celestial being. He has an essence. He can’t just … stop existing.”

“I’m afraid it is possible. Or, if it isn’t—I haven’t yet discovered how. How to recover him. There might be a way, but it is complicated.”

“So there’s a chance,” Sam says.

Jack grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Not right now, Sam. All I can tell you is that you have to go on living. Dean has to go on living. We need you both.”

“Dean,” Sam whispered.

“Dean is having his own dream. Like this one, but different.”

Sam closes his eyes.

“Sleep now, Sam. Know that I’m with you.”

And then Jack is gone.

When he wakes, it’s light outside. He’s slept late. And he’s rested, which means he slept soundly. But he remembers everything, and he knows that nothing is all right. It might never be all right again—or at least not for a long time. He reaches for his clothes.

When he reaches the common areas, he finds the evidence. Things he finds broken: a lamp, a chair. Several dishes. Some glasses. The chair is in fucking pieces—more pieces than Sam thought possible. Then he realizes: that was Cas’s chair. And these were the dishes and cups that Cas used. The objects Cas had touched, the physical artifacts on which he’d left his angel fingerprints.

Sam knows better than to try to gather the pieces. He needs to find Dean. Figuring Dean's driven off somewhere, he goes to check the garage. Dean’s car is still there. He hasn’t gone far. On a hunch, Sam looks through the Impala’s windows. Sure enough, Dean is in the backseat, slumped in the corner. Sam opens the door and bends over to look inside.

Dean’s gaze meets his. He’s not crying, but only because he’s cried himself out. His eyes are red and wet, his face tear-streaked. And behind his eyes—the haunted and unmistakable combination of heartbreak, guilt, and some inexplicable emotion that Sam can’t name.

“Jack came to you,” Sam says.

Dean blinks.

“He came to me too. Can I …?” He gestures to the seat. Dean says nothing, so he climbs into the backseat and closes the door behind him.

Neither of them says anything. Dean looks away. Sam notices he’s clutching the same dull green jacket he was wearing the morning he met them in town. The morning after Cas died.

He unfolds it, shows it to Sam—shows him the bloody handprint on the left shoulder. “Cas’s blood. It’s the last part of me he touched before—” He gasps, the tears starting again. “He pushed me aside, onto the ground. Out of the path of the Empty.” He looks down at the jacket, pressing his hand to the handprint. “For weeks now I’ve looked. I have his blood, Sam. _His blood_. It should be enough to bring him back from wherever the fuck he is. But in all those fucking books. On the entire internet. In whatever language—Sammy, I’ve—I’ve translated the word _empty_ into every foreign language I can think of and then some—I’m an idiot about this shit, but you’d—you’d be fucking proud.” He tries to smile but begins to sob. “And I can’t find a single goddamn thing that mentions the Empty, that would give us any fucking spell, let alone a spell we could cast with his blood. I can’t find any fucking _chance_ of getting him back.”

“Dean.”

“I just keep failing him.”

“No, Dean.”

“The way I always fail him.” He lets go of the jacket so that it rests in his lap. “If only he’d just let Billie take us both. Cas could have found a way back then.”

“But he didn’t want that.”

“Billie would have killed me, whatever. And she would have taken Cas. But—not to the Empty.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He levels another devastated stare at his brother. “I lied to you. Again. I'm sorry, Sammy. It's like, all I ever do is lie to you." His voice breaks. "I told you I didn’t know how Cas summoned the Empty.”

“Dean.” Sam touches his brother’s forearm. “It's fine. You don’t have to tell me. It’s—it’s not—” _It’s not for me to know_ , he thinks. He shakes his head. “Jack mentioned something about it.”

“Jack?”

“Not in my dream. The day after Cas … We were in the car. He—he told me about Cas’s deal. And he apologized for keeping it from us.”

“What did Jack say?”

“That Cas traded himself to the Empty, and the Empty said it wouldn’t take him until he was happy. That’s all.”

Dean turns away from Sam, looking out the car window. Then he rests his forehead against it. “A moment of true happiness. That fucking idiot.” He tilts his head to glance back at Sam. “You know what that meant for Cas?”

He swallows. Looks straight at his brother and nods. “Yes.”

Dean doesn’t look away.

“Not because of anything Jack said. Not because of anything _you_ said. But—yeah, Dean. I know. Of course I know.”

Crumpled against the car window, Dean begins to sob again—the sort of raw, heaving sobs that can’t feel good when you’ve been crying all morning, crying for days and weeks. He has nothing left. Sam's heart breaks for him. Again. And again. 

"He was the love of your life, Dean," he manages to choke out. "And you were his. You think I didn't know that? Dean." 

Now Dean is looking at Sam. Shaking his head.

"You'll always have that."

Several minutes from now, he'll help his brother out of the car and guide him back inside, back into the bunker. He'll take Dean to his room and put him to bed there, removing his shoes and covering him with a blanket, pretending that he's the strong one here, that he can help Dean through this trial that has no end, this time that's unbound by the length of ordinary human days.

But before he can do that, while they're still in the car, Sam reaches over to retrieve his brother from the corner of the backseat. He pulls Dean close, wrapping his arms around his shaking shoulders, resting his chin on Dean’s head. Trying to absorb the sadness the best he can, while knowing that this kind of grief can never be contained. 

7.

He tries to take comfort in routine. What else can you do? The days get shorter and darker, that part of the year when darkness meets you on both sides of the afternoon. Dean’s still a mess who drinks too much and can barely finish half a hamburger, but together they smoke out a batsquatch and investigate some Mothman sightings. (“The Mothman seems pretty harmless,” Dean admits. “If he’s not doing anything, we might as well do him a solid. He'll owe us down the road.”) They even solve a genuine-ass human murder mystery, wherein someone mistook a stalker for shadow person.

It feels good, to be of use again. It gets a little easier.

In December, Eileen says she wants to go to the zoo in Kansas City. She’s always wanted to go. For the holidays, they put up all kinds of lights. And though it’s a drive, they set aside a Saturday to go. Dean doesn’t seem annoyed to be a third wheel anymore. He doesn’t even mind sitting in the back.

The zoo decorations are what you’d expect—or what Sam would expect, anyway. He’s never been into holiday displays or Christmas cheer. Or even zoos. Zoos just remind him that all the wild animals are dying as they speak, going extinct due to deforestation and poaching and droughts and all else. The giraffes. The lions. The last Sumatran rhino in the wild died last year. Asian tigers are pretty much gone. Polar bears are losing their icebergs, falling straight into the Atlantic with nothing to hold onto.

He doesn’t say anything about this—obviously. Especially not as Dean and Eileen seem to be enjoying themselves, stopping to check out the primates.

As always, he just goes along.

“You’re so much more sanguine than your brother,” Cas told him once. “Or at least you seem that way on the outside.”

“On the outside?”

“But you have your melancholy. You just hold it inside.”

As the daylight fades, the lights come on and they are indeed impressive, dazzling.

“I wish we’d gotten to do this with Jack,” Dean says. “He would have loved this.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He knows Dean carries a lot of guilt about Jack—about the things he said in the end. There’s so much they didn’t get to do with Jack.

As they walk around the zoo, he wants to say something to Dean, but it’s something Dean’s not ready to hear. Maybe he’ll never be able to hear it, Sam doesn’t know.

He wants to tell Dean that he’s lucky. That even in the ways he’s been extraordinarily unlucky—growing up Winchester, going to hell a few times, being Michael’s bottom bitch, losing Cas—he’s still the luckiest sonofabitch Sam knows. He’s lucky to have known Cas, to have loved him, to have had him for so many years.

All day he’s been thinking about this, remembering something that Cas once said. They were sitting around in the reading room, books all over the place as usual, and Cas was paging through one about superstitions. “Huh, that’s interesting,” he said.

Dean was sitting in front of his laptop, finishing a soft drink in a waxy paper cup. He rattled it to move the ice and then sucked on the straw again. He looked at Cas. “Are you waiting for me to say ‘what’? Is that my cue?”

“Children born on Christmas have an astonishing number of superstitions surrounding them, many of them contradictory. Some old wives’ tales say that they can talk to animals. Others say that they turn into goblins. Others still say they’re very lucky—maybe the luckiest people on earth. But other superstitions say they’re _un_ lucky.” He flips the page. “Some can supposedly see ghosts and demons.”

“Wow, ghosts and demons,” Dean said, his voice kept flat to feign disinterest. “You can’t get unluckier than that.”

“Maybe,” Cas said, sitting back. He caught Sam’s eyes from across the table. “But like anything, it’s a matter of perspective. Fortune and misfortune are closer than we think they are. One and the same. We think of them as diametrically opposed. But really, luck is an agnostic concept. What is it other than an occurrence that seems to defy probability? It doesn’t matter if the outcome is good or bad.”

Dean turned around to look at the clock, even though his laptop had a clock and he knew what time it was. He was just making a point. “It’s too early in the day for this pseudo-philosophical bullshit, Cas. I haven’t started drinking yet.”

“For some people,” Cas continued as though Dean hadn’t interrupted, “seeing ghosts is something they want. They would view someone with a psychic gift as fortunate, I suppose. Even if that person feels very unfortunate.”

“And that person would be right,” Dean said. “Seeing ghosts means you’ve been handed a shit deal.”

Cas sat back, folded his hands, and looked up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I think about Jimmy Novak. I know he felt blessed when I found him, when I chose him. Like he was winning some cosmic lottery.” He lowered his gaze. “I know he didn’t feel that way later.”

Now Dean was listening. In spite of himself, he wanted to hear what Cas had to say. He always wanted to hear what Cas had to say.

“Do you know your chances of dying in a plane crash?” Cas said.

“Is this is your favorite pickup line?” Dean said, “If so, I can tell you there might be a reason you’re as ‘lucky’ as you want to be.”

Sam said, “Isn’t it like one in six million?”

“Something like that,” Cas said. “And your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are even smaller—in the neighborhood of one in 30 million. And yet, the two things happened to one couple. A woman who lost her husband in the World Trade Center on 9/11 died in a plane crash a few years later.” He peered at Dean. “Imagine the odds.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that,” Sam said. “That was weird.”

Dean clasped his hands together in front of his computer screen. “Cas. That’s not luck. That’s not misfortune. That’s Billie being an asshole.”

“Maybe. It’s also possible the widow missed her husband. Perhaps when the moment came, she was relieved.”

"So the grieving 9/11 widow just wanted to be reunited with her husband. Yeah, okay. Whatever you say."

Cas squinted. “My point is that fortune and misfortune are closer than we think. Luck is just luck. Your luck can be good or it can be bad. But the concept of luck itself is indifferent to what we _think_ we want in this particular veil, and that’s the point.”

Dean waited a beat. Then he rose. “Well, I want a drink. And as luck would have it, we have plenty of that around.” He got up to stroll over to the wet bar. On his way, he lingered for a second and squeezed Cas’s shoulder. “You want one, Sam?”

“I’m good.”

“Cas?”

“I’ll have a double.” He looked at Sam and smiled.

Now, under the lights and beside the animals, next to the woman he loves and the brother he’ll never leave, Sam remembers who they once were, and what they came for.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Dean asks Cas to play at his funeral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AOp9c5DRzc
> 
> _If I ever leave this world alive  
>  I'll take on all the sadness  
> That I left behind  
> If I ever leave this world alive  
> The madness that you feel will soon subside  
> So in a word don't shed a tear  
> I'll be here when it all gets weird  
> If I ever leave this world alive_


End file.
